Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, The Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
Genetics. 2021 Mar 3;217(1):1-34. doi: 10.1093/genetics/iyaa011.
Genetic approaches in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, have led to a major triumph in the field of sensory biology-the discovery of multiple large families of sensory receptors and channels. Some of these families, such as transient receptor potential channels, are conserved from animals ranging from worms to humans, while others, such as "gustatory receptors," "olfactory receptors," and "ionotropic receptors," are restricted to invertebrates. Prior to the identification of sensory receptors in flies, it was widely assumed that these proteins function in just one modality such as vision, smell, taste, hearing, and somatosensation, which includes thermosensation, light, and noxious mechanical touch. By employing a vast combination of genetic, behavioral, electrophysiological, and other approaches in flies, a major concept to emerge is that many sensory receptors are multitaskers. The earliest example of this idea was the discovery that individual transient receptor potential channels function in multiple senses. It is now clear that multitasking is exhibited by other large receptor families including gustatory receptors, ionotropic receptors, epithelial Na+ channels (also referred to as Pickpockets), and even opsins, which were formerly thought to function exclusively as light sensors. Genetic characterizations of these Drosophila receptors and the neurons that express them also reveal the mechanisms through which flies can accurately differentiate between different stimuli even when they activate the same receptor, as well as mechanisms of adaptation, amplification, and sensory integration. The insights gleaned from studies in flies have been highly influential in directing investigations in many other animal models.
在果蝇（Drosophila melanogaster）中，遗传方法已经在感觉生物学领域取得了重大突破——发现了多个大型感觉受体和通道家族。这些家族中的一些，如瞬时受体电位通道，在从蠕虫到人类的动物中都有保守，而其他家族，如“味觉受体”、“嗅觉受体”和“离子型受体”，则局限于无脊椎动物。在鉴定果蝇中的感觉受体之前，人们普遍认为这些蛋白质仅在一种模态中发挥作用，如视觉、嗅觉、味觉、听觉和躯体感觉，其中包括热感觉、光和有害机械触觉。通过在果蝇中采用大量的遗传、行为、电生理和其他方法，一个主要的概念是许多感觉受体是多功能的。这个想法的最早例子是发现单个瞬时受体电位通道在多种感觉中起作用。现在很清楚，其他大型受体家族也表现出多功能性，包括味觉受体、离子型受体、上皮钠离子通道（也称为 Pickpockets），甚至视蛋白，以前认为它们仅作为光传感器发挥作用。这些果蝇受体及其表达神经元的遗传特征也揭示了苍蝇能够区分不同刺激的机制，即使它们激活相同的受体，以及适应、放大和感觉整合的机制。从果蝇研究中获得的见解，在指导许多其他动物模型的研究方面具有高度的影响力。
